Tough Grace
For 12 years, a once-proud career woman struggled with manic depression, becoming a “bag lady” and experiencing more than a dozen hospitalizations, before entering recovery.
Communicable Gifts
Both healthy ideas and unhealthy ideas can take hold and spread like viruses. Suicidal tendencies and eating disorders provide invaluable lessons to one communitarian.
Gifted, Mad, and Out of Control
The author recounts his personal history with the “mentally ill”—social misfits who can show us the way to a better world, if they are allowed to make the journey.
Further Thoughts on a Community’s Changes
This companion piece to Elderhood, In and Out of Community gives further reflections from community members.
Getting Elder All the Time
Community can be balm for the discomforts of aging, just as elders’ wisdom and caring can soothe the growing pains of youth.
Poor Minutes Lead to Wasted Hours
By Laird Schaub Good records of what happened at meetings are important for a variety of reasons: ● Informing members who missed the meeting what happened. The minutes should include sufficient detail that people will be able to tell if points dear to them have...Remembering Jane Owen
In reviving and restoring the site of two historical intentional communities, a town’s benefactor revitalized its sense of present-day community as she continued to dream, create, grow, and give.
And I Listen
Howling, shouting, cries of despair, and The Pierced One greet a parent on her first visit to her daughter’s adopted community. Luckily, through lots of talking and listening, things improve.
On Becoming Elders
For many baby boomers, taking on the mantle of eldership means transforming the sometimes rambunctious, in-your-face, empowerment-obsessed energy they worked so hard to sustain.
Elderhood, In and Out of Community
A disenchanted community founder leaves her group, and finds that her rural hometown farming community and international travel and service better match her vision of honorable elderhood.